


Otherworldly Dissonance

by Plinkoid_Fics (daveaj)



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Derse and Prospit, M/M, Major Character Injury, Robots
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-04-08
Updated: 2015-04-08
Packaged: 2018-03-21 23:30:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 15,260
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3707425
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/daveaj/pseuds/Plinkoid_Fics
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Robots were lame. You did not want to build robots. All you were interested in was that Dersite kid who had so openly ignored you. Taking this job had supposed to be your one-way ticket to putting an end to that ugly attitude.</p><p>The end of that ugly attitude marks the beginning of something you were not so prepared for.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Otherworldly Dissonance

**Author's Note:**

> This fic is a repost with permission. It was originally by former Tumblr/AO3 user Plinkoid. For more information on the author, go [here](http://archiveofourown.org/users/Daveaj/profile). The rating and tags may not be entirely accurate to what they were before, but I tried to account for any triggers I could find. If anyone leaves comments I will make sure the author sees them. Any notes after this point are the author's original notes.  
> \---  
> To the lovely dzueni on tumblr.
> 
> An amazing person and source of inspiration; thank you for everything!

derse

24th of may

i have to admit that im not a coleopterist but when i found these lil guys on the sidewalk the other day well they were just really reminiscent of prospit   
that first day i saw you was one of the first days i spent on prospit and everything was way too ridiculously gold but here its pretty rare to see anything like that even if theyre just gold coloured beetles like these guys  
second confession: i totally had to ask around to know that coleopterist was the word for it so i forgive you for not knowing the word right away 

“You look terrible.”

“Thank you.” Though the energy wasn’t there today, you’d been through enough together to imagine the sarcastic drip of her words instead of forcing yourself to hear it.

“The whole one arm, one eye look doesn’t really make you pop in the right way.”

“You, John Egbert, are the reason why I am in this ugly predicament.”

You laugh and wink at her, making sure to comment on how she could no longer accomplish the prowess of winking charmingly, an art you’ve all but mastered. The argument that follows tips in your favour. With the eyepatch it would be indiscernable when it came to her winks and blinks. She tells you that all she’ll have to do to convey the right emotion is to twist her face just as grotesquely as you do when you try winking.

You would be insulted, but it’s Vriska and she isn’t exactly queen of aesthetics. Well, not of classical aesthetics in any case. You’re fairly sure she actually likes this new look because it gives off the air of adventure and of daring escapades that she likes to brag about. You suppose that’s the one thing keeping your guilt at bay.

You’re aware that it isn’t really as if it had been your fault. It had been her idea, not yours. It had been her plan, not yours. It had been her actions, not yours. But you’d gone along for the ride the whole time, and though you knew her well enough to know she would have just found a different sidekick had you bailed, you still haven’t managed to change the slides that come to you when you close your eyes at night. Her arm trapped, her right hand prodding uselessly at her blood covered face.

“Are you sure this guy’s going to make me look badass though?”

Or maybe she was somewhat of a queen of aesthetics, but any insults she could make on your appearance left you indifferent. If looking like a badass meant you had to sacrifice an arm in the name of robotics, you’d rather look like a nerd with actual fleshed out arms. You tell her as much, but she pointedly ignores it, and you feel a smidgen worse about things, just bad enough to attempt some sort of reassurance.

“But yeah, for sure you will look like a badass. He’s a Dersite, it doesn’t get much more badass than that!”

It was the right thing to say, despite the slight darkening of her features. She liked to proclaim that she’d been birthed onto the wrong planet, that her heart was pitch black and definitely belonged on the pitch black Derse, land that reflected less light than coal managed to. The sparkling, irradient land of Prospit, despite orbiting side by side with this ball of darkness, suited her well, but you knew she wasn’t likely to fess up to that.

“I don’t know, Jade’s dreambot is pretty vanilla, I feel like going on with only one arm might be better for my image.”

Jade’s dreambot was actually the entire reason you were even referring Vriska to this guy in the first place. Admittedly, the round flashy red eyes gave off a distinct insect vibe, but that was hardly enough of a reason to call the style vanilla. Besides, your friend Vriska has never seemed to have any aversion towards that type of creatures. That said, she hasn't been the dreambot's number one fan. It only made sense for Jade, the most versed in all things hobbies and arts out of all the people you've met, to have a medium to enable her going ons to continue late into the night. Vriska, on the other hand, had told her very directly time and time again that sleeping was for the weak; were Jade so invested in being active she would be cashing in on insomnia instead.

You're half convinced that entering this shop will end with you being swindled out of your trust funds, but accompanying her is honestly the very least you could do to assist her, and paying for the repairs is your small compensation and, you're hoping, your ticket to a clean conscience and a good night sleep. Besides, aside from the bug eyes, Jade's robot counterpart was of a good quality and of a high efficiency. Mind controlled robotics were the solution here, you could only quietly hope that Vriska's new arm wouldn't come out with a gross arachnid theme.

You wander around for longer than you had expected to; this of course prompts your companion to go off on a high number of rants, all with the common theme of how you had spectacularly botched up her life. There wasn't much defence you could put up against this specific theme, and so you had instead decided to take the tactic of humour. Or, to be precise, the tactic of conveniently laughing at all of her valid complaints to avoid making any sort of formal apology.

You don't apologize for honestly getting lost in the city either. Despite having spent your life here, gold remains gold, and regardless of all the wise elders' speeches of Prospit's high-end, intricate architecture; gold is gold, period. The engineer's workshop was not golden however, and you had been relying on this piece of information to navigate yourself to your desired destination. You'd been relying on Jade's words, Jade's promise that finding the spot would be like finding an inkblot on, well, on just about anything produced by your home planet.

It turns out that the engineer's tent is not a circus sized tent as you had assumed, is not high enough for trapezes and a tightrope, does not possess the grandiose quality the streets you knew so well possessed. You would not sleep in this tent in fact, though it could probably contain a dozen of you, but only at very most. You could not sleep in this tent, and you definitely could not watch a circus show in this tent. Luckily for you, even if it wasn't your sort of place, it seemed to please your friend very much so.

She had been the one to nudge you and to point you towards the remote space in which it was located, seeming to find the very widest shadow the cathedral was able to cast, hiding itself in its own version of tenebrous Derse, and from that point on, she was the one leading you to the workshop, jabbering excitedly and patting at her left shoulder, or maybe at the new space created beneath it, it was hard to tell with the way her sleeve hung limply.

You admired her adaption skills, the pride that had not yet left her posture and walk, she was seemingly unaffected by the terrible blow her physical ressources had recently taken. This trait of character was hardly enough to convince you to step into the shady looking spot, the tent's door was held open, barbaric looking bars of steel holding them up and forming a not so very decent looking roof to the store's 'doorstep'. Though you liked her a lot, you weren't sure you liked her just enough to step into such a cramped space, not to mention such a shifty looking cramped space. The way her shrill voice demanded assistance as she entered had you wincing and imagining the engineer botching up her arm worse than you had botched up her entire life, and that successfully urged you to follow in, to try to salvage her chances to get some good service.

The interior was better than the exterior, but not by much. It was a veritable cavern of wonders, but not anything that could entice you into breathing comfortably, and not anything that assured you that you could expect the quality of the robot that stood stock-still in Jade's closet whenever you visited her tower. The fabric of the tent was just as dark and as intimidating seen from the inside as it had been outwardly, but amongst the dark items and materials strewn about haphazardly, you could in fact recognize some bolts and items of the delicate golden you'd grown up with. It was very little to hang onto and did little to counter the discouragement that knocked into you at the sight of the piles of cinder blocks, of the rudimentary tools and items that gave no air of sophistication to the joint. Vriska seemed overjoyed and you supposed it was her arm that was getting fixed up after all, not yours. Her opinion might, for the very first time, matter more than yours did.

But if Vriska's high sounding and demanding 'excuse me' and her slightly disjointed movements as she had to decide between placing her hand over her hip and flipping her hair, now that she was limited to one handed movements, did anything to gain some decent service, you couldn't at all tell. Personally, you'd never met a Dersite, you couldn't quite say you cared to meet one, not if the state of this shop was any indicator, but you'd spent a good chunk of last night imagining how this meeting might go. Of course, mister the engineer would have a heart just as black as Vriska's, but you would have also bet that his hair would be even darker than yours, if that was at all possible. Darker than yours and Vriska's combined, and Jade too for that matter. His tone of skin would have been darker than Vriska's too, of course. In fact, you'd mostly imagined him as a shadow of a man. Growing up with no exposition to sunlight, that would do that to someone, you had thought.

At first, you'd believed him to be an ongoing project or something. Some sort of android, in which case quality had actually gone up, instead of down like you had believed. The round shades were to mask his uncompleted eyes, not to assist in the use of blowtorches, or whatever robot building people got up to. Didn't really look sturdy as Jade's robot did, sort of flimsy, pale, the opposite of the picture you'd constructed of the Dersite population. You're ashamed to admit that, even watching him handle the holographic tablet, it did not immediately dawn to you that he was not a fabrication. The crisp, sardonic laughter as he slid dexterous fingers over the screen was the first indication that he was not, in fact, a robot.

The famed purple uniforms of those coming from Derse was maybe a second clue.

But the final clue was the guy who stepped in and intercepted your view of the robot lookalike. The ressemblance was uncanny, and here you had to pause to wonder if, perhaps, the first guy who was seated comfortably atop a throne of those not so trustworthy looking cinder blocks, might actually be the real mechanic's clone. The differences were subtle. His eyewear was much more eccentric, appropriate to shielding his eyes from metallic scraps and the flames he must work with, you finally realized. His hair styled in a fashion that first reminded you of those flames, and you did not keep yourself from stepping to the side to look back at the twin, you assumed, and his much more docile looking hairstyle. You picked up on the other details with a slight sense of arrogance, the first one had less wide a frame of shoulders, more gentle looking hands, a softer curve of the jawbone. You wanted to laugh, there was no way that first one could handle heavy machinery. That tablet was probably a challenge in itself.

By the time you had tuned back in, Vriska had engaged the owner in deep conversation, but that wasn't enough to keep you from cutting in.

"Where did you come from? What was your name again?"

Jade had mentioned it to you, she had even written it down for you, along with the directions on how to get here, but you'd of course lost it as soon as manageable. You tried to not be too obvious about glancing towards the back of the shop again. You were doing this for Vriska's sake, you were commanding all the attention here, with your booming confidence. It was going to draw that second employee in and away from the dumb galactic whale videos his tablet was displaying. You were the customer after all, this was how to conduct business.

Galactic whale video watcher remained unaffected and still laughed to himself as they backflipped into starry waters, well, it, at the very least, had to be as impressive as galactic backflips should be, anything less was just insulting to your radiant personality.

You miss the owner's answer and name, but you conveniently recall that it was the very unfortunate name of Dirk. You only barely keep yourself from commenting on its awfulness.

Dirk and Vriska get along well enough. The installation doesn't take too long. She makes a lot of jokes about her missing eye which you find remotely reassuring. And it doesn't end up being scorpion themed, which you find insanely reassuring. You can only imagine her outpranking you with the help of such mediums. But pale Dersite number one never gets up from his crappy throne, and still finds a lot more interest and entertainment from his produced holograms than he does you. You think of asking about him or about his name way more than just once. You're too offended to do so, and too offended to think about how he's one of the most attractive people you've met. Somehow more so than Dirk, though you can tell their features are quasi-identical.

You leave feeling very dissatisfied, though you're supposed to be pretending that you can concentrate enough to listen to Vriska's bragging, pertaining to how impressed Dirk had been with her quick learning abilities and her impressive willpower to move her new limb to her own accord.

You think to yourself that unnamed whales guy is not a nice person. Your only comfort is to try convincing yourself that he must have been an android after all, or a mindless clone; there was no other reason that could explain his total lack of noticing you. You don't feel convinced.

prospit,  
4th of june.

thanks for your last letter! yeah, you were right, things are still going pretty awful at the store. don't tell my boss (your bro) i said so though. here, you'll find attached my best efforts to pretend i give a damn about robotics.   
it's a wind-up bird! i saw one of the birds you worked on at the museum the other day, but i think mine is honestly much cooler. you crank up the key in its back and it hops around, or it's supposed to.  
maybe.

It really hadn't been that big of a deal. You'd gotten what you'd wanted, what you'd needed. A new arm for Vriska, and a clean conscience about the whole ordeal. Vriska hadn't brought up the incident since she'd gotten her new arm, she was much too absorbed with constantly reaffirming and telling you just how insanely cool she looked with the new arm, and how part of her body, and soul, now truly belonged to Derse, whatever that even meant.

Everything was just fine, thank you very much. And you didn't have to think about Vriska's half restrained screams of agony whenever you tried falling asleep anymore. Definite plus. And knowing that someone was uninterested in even looking your way was hardly even a minus. It was nothing, no one cared about that. You definitely did not care about that. You hadn't stopped thinking about what had happened with your friend Vriska just in order to start thinking of how the Dersite hadn't even thought you were worthy enough to look at. You'd been a customer, for goodness' sake! A minimum amount of respect could have gone a long way there.

For the third night consecutively, your thoughts had been haunted by ghostlike memories, pale fingers gliding over an illuminated screen, the shape of his knee as he had leaned a cheek against it, off notes of a laughter that felt far away from everything that you knew. He had no right to make you think of him when he had not had a single thought of you. It was unacceptable. Ridiculous. Infuriating. Stupid. So, incredibly, massively, extraordinarily, stupid!

You were going to make him think of you. It was as simple as that.

All it took for Vriska to agree on the plan was to tell her; "You know, that new arm of yours sure has lost its spark. You wouldn't want that to happen to you as a whole, would you?"

Maybe it wasn't your nicest move. For how quickly she had adapted to coordinating her arm movements, the new glass eye she'd commissioned made her seem like a fish out of water, failing to grab objects with her left hand now more often than she had with the patch on instead. She was insecure enough in her current state for you to convince her to drop by the shady shop once more. What could she ask for? For the pure robot genius to just shine and buff her arm? You were unconvinced she had thought that far ahead, but then again, neither had you.

Maybe you'd find a lucky strike, maybe mister ignores you a lot would be the only one tending to the shop today, maybe he wouldn't be on his three hour long whale watching break, maybe he was about to show you all the interest and attention in the world. As he should.

You'd thought about it a lot, well, you'd thought about it enough. And there was no decent reason for anyone, especially not some pale feminine looking boy from Derse, to be looking anywhere but at you when you were in the room. None. He must have been having an off day. There was no way that history could repeat itself, not on this. Your plan might have been poorly constructed, but at the same time it was flawless. You would show up. Check that the world was still in order. The world would still be in order. End of mission. End of troubled sleeping. Only smooth sleeping from now on.

In principle, flawless. But Dirk had not taken the day off. Maybe second Derse boy had taken the day off. You couldn't find him. Not even when you'd politely, or not so politely, asked to look around the store. It was as cramped as you could have imagined, and near impossible to venture in the almost non-existent alleys, but most of all, it had no signs of anyone lazily throning atop piles of useless scraps and paying attention to all the wrong things.

You, once again, do not manage to ask the owner about him. You, instead, have to watch in utter boredom as Vriska gets him to darken the metal of her arm. She seems pretty adamant about telling you that this will help her hand-eye coordination. You make comments about how shitty robot-hand-glass-eye coordination would always be. She doesn't laugh, and neither does Dirk. You mentally reassure yourself that the missing party in the room would have totally laughed. If dumb holographic animals could make him laugh, your ingenious masterful sense of humour would too.

You move extra slowly when you exit the tent, at dusk, roads at the peak of their golden tones. You fully expect the missing guy to slide into the picture, just as Dirk had done on that day, to appear suddenly and without too much of a fuss. Maybe he could admit that he'd been watching you on that day, you just couldn't tell with the sunglasses, and that he'd been thinking of you non-stop ever since. You'd act a little creeped out, duh, because that would be creepy and you would need to express that to come off as a normal civilian and all that. But it would make so much sense, that guy's issue would finally make sense. And then you would finally stop thinking of him.

Had you bumped into him on the way out, you were two hundred percent sure that's how it would have gone down. Seeing as you do not bump into him on your way out, you hardly say a word to Vriska on your way back home. When she asks you for a third time what you think of the improved version of her arm, you tell her you think it's as ugly as her mismatched eyes, but she doesn't seem to listen. You turn down the offer to hang out and instead spend most of the night questioning the possibility of finding a new reason to return to the robot tent. It's not looking too good.

Turns out, you aren't able to hold off for days again. You have no business taking the ferry from the Prospitian Moon to the mainland so early on in the morning of the following day, but you figure that your best chance is to show up at different times of the day, to find the time slot in which he works, or the one in which he really doesn't even make the effort to pretend to work at all.

Your excuse to be showing your face at opening hour only takes half a minute. Your lady friend had forgotten something yesterday. What, Dirk asks you. And you more or less run out, laughing loudly and trying to formulate an answer, but not trying exceptionally hard.

The week goes on in a similar fashion. You stop feeling disappointed, start feeling frustrated. Maybe, he'd been shocked by your presence and had fled Prospit, too in awe of... Well, of someone like you! That was too farfetched, even for your wildest hopes, but he did not appear again. Dirk stood alone behind his barely recognizable counter day after day, never looking shocked to see you pop your head in. Maybe Dirk had fired his lookalike? Maybe his competences had gone way down the drain after he'd seen you?

Not likely, he hadn't looked competent at all the day you'd met. But maybe, that was the key to the mystery! He hadn't been able to look up from the tablet, too intimidated by someone like you to look up. He'd wasted his entire day of work pretending to be into whales, to avoid looking at you, which had followed up by his banishment from the store. You should have pieced it together way earlier!

You still dropped by. Increasingly later in the day. And by your tenth visit, Dirk has had enough.

"I know why you're here."

Those were his greeting words, much different from his usual inquiry on why you'd come. Today, he knew, apparently. Which was odd, seeing as your excuse varied from day to day. Your hands felt cold at the thought that, maybe, he actually knew. Knew what? That you had questions about the employee that didn't really seem to work here? Wasn't that a bit strange? A bit out of the left hand field? There was hardly any evidence to back that up.

You still hesitated to step through the threshold. What would happen if he knew? Would you be banned from the store? What if he called the Prospitian authorities? No, you couldn't be so ridiculous, you hadn't done anything wrong! Right...?

"I— Oh yeah, I was just here because... You know I have this friend, she's got one of your dreambots? Well, I don't know how many dreambots you've made, but she has a dreambot and uhm..." You stopped yourself, there was no valid excuse you could make out of this commentary, and he seemed as if he was waiting for you to shut up to announce that he truly, veritably knew why you'd shown your face.

You curled your hands, straightening your posture despite it all.

"You want to work here."

"Yes." Wait, no.

"I knew it!" He points a finger at you, his face set in an accusing way, though his words seemed understanding and kind. "I knew it, as soon as you asked to look around. I'm all for extra help, why didn't you just bring it up?"

Why hadn't you just brought it up? You could think of a dozen of reasons. Top of the list was: Robots are lame. You almost tell him, but wisely decide against it. Robots were lame though, they really were. Building them? Even more so. Working in this tiny tent? Would be hell. It was still the shadiest sight you'd seen.

However, working here would be a free pass to no longer using excuses to check the place for Dirk doppelgängers. Next time that guy showed his face, he would definitely need to pay you some attention, you were even working here for goodness' sake. You were pretty much set here. There would be an embarrassing confession of how little (nothing) you knew of robotics, but that aside, you were in the best of positions.

derse  
13th of august

i hate how freely you use the word stuffing   
by the way this is a stuffed animal aka a plush toy   
which i specifically made for you so yeah youre welcome   
my friend rose helped with the whole cloth instead of skin thing but you know i did the important stuff 

ill see you soon btw

Robot building was not going great. Dirk was constantly telling you how proud of you he was, as if you were the poor dumb kid who had an earnest passion for robotics, but were just terrible with it. The thought that you, in fact, could not care less about this sort of work, did not dawn on him, not once it seemed. Your constant sighing and impromptu naps over your makeshift desk (really could not be called a desk) did nothing to clue him in.

You were sure you were giving an awful name to all Prospitians around the globe, totally validating this kid from Derse as someone with higher abilities than your own kind. He probably felt so smug about teaching you. Surprisingly, you were improving, despite your complete disinterest with the subject at hand. Robots had not become less lame. Magic tricks, standup comedy, those were less lame things... Which you'd wanted to master in the past, but in which you had never made any tangible progress. Robotics, however, you were getting better with.

Which was not enjoyable, not in the least! Your second week into the work, you'd resolved that whoever had decided to just about snob you, had snobbed you very hard and had left your life, and probably your planet, altogether. It had been your resolution, back then, to find the perfect opportunity to resign. It should have been easy enough, it wasn't as if you'd even asked for a job in the first place. But your steadily increasing skills were leaving you with no space to do so, and Dirk's firm belief that this was your life calling did you no favours either.

Not showing up was starting to seem like a tempting option. It's not as if you ever saw Dirk outside of the tent. And he could probably only live and lurk in the shadows anyway, what with being from such a dark, gloomy place. Avoiding him wouldn't be that great of a challenge. It would be a little rude, but it wasn't as if you were getting what you wanted from this arrangement. It was only ever Dirk and yourself in the store, there weren't even frequent orders. The quality of the work seemed to be high enough that no one dropped by for repairs. Business was slow and you spent your days sharpening yours skills. Which would be fairly awesome, were the skills not so completely lame.

You'd all but given up on your past, enjoyable life, filled with hobbies you genuinely liked and instead spent your days inside, uncomfortably seated atop a stack of cinder blocks, daydreaming of skipping the following day and never returning. Obviously, that would be the moment when your arrangement would become valid again.

You hadn't bothered looking up from the mindless task you'd been given earlier, sorting out different tiny parts that all looked the same, but ultimately, were nothing alike. It wasn't as if you tended to any of the rare customers. Despite Dirk being 'proud' of your work, he wasn't quite proud enough to let you handle anyone who was offering money. Smartly so, you would say. He'd tried to let you handle a customer once, vocally anyway, and it had left with said customer storming out.

And so, there had been just about zero reasons to drag your eyes away from the complexity of your boring task. A reason did appear when Dirk did not approach the customer just as respectfully as he typically tended to do.

"What the hell are you doing here?"

That at least piqued your interest. Dirk almost sounded... Hostile? It must have been the Derse mafia! They were going to beat him up for leaving their sacred land, and then the shop would close down, and you would officially be free! You failed to keep a smile on your face as you slowly stood up.

You had not noticed whilst you had been working, but Dirk had steadily stacked up parts near your desk, keeping your view of the front partially blocked, you'd need to peek around it to see if Dirk was getting beaten up or not, which you wouldn't be able to pull off subtly, but if this was truly happening, then there would be no reasons to deal with this place again, or the repercussions of lacking common subtlety.

The sight had you dashing back into your seat, eyes wide, breath stopped. That had definitely not been Dirk getting beaten up or beating anyone up. Unless hugging could be qualified as beating up with affection. The round shades had appeared just above Dirk's shoulder. So, he was a little shorter too. His hair was still styled in a much softer way than your boss' was. And just a second of a glance had shown you his hand, pressed onto Dirk's back, all slim fingers and neat looking nails. Really nice hands. Really nice hair. It couldn't be.

You stayed, sat straight as an arrow, straining your hearing to catch the exchanged words. You were decided. If the guy walked out of here, you'd run after him, you could not afford to wait three months again. And if Dirk saw you as strange for it, so be it. He already saw you as a weird loser who couldn't make robot building work for him, despite a fiery passion, or something of the sorts anyway.

"Yeah, I'm here to pick up some salamanders."

"How long?"

"I dunno. I was thinking I'd take the boat back tomorrow?"

"Come on, no. You always do this. Would it kill you to spend some family time together?"

"Dude, it would kill less if you hadn't just up and left Derse."

You couldn't help it, you were contorting out of your seat to find a way to observe the pair. The one armed, half hearted hug had not lasted for all that long, and they were now separated by a comfortable distance. You recognized that Dirk looked more relaxed than he tended to be, though his posture also suggested an element of scolding his... Brother, most definitely brother. Probably his twin, you would say.

"You told me you wouldn't hold that against me. You know there's no place on Derse for an honest business."

"That's true. All the honest people leave, so, yeah, basically, true."

He crossed his arms and you leaned even further still, intrigued by the sound of his voice, by the words he pronounced differently than Dirk did.

"So could you. It's not exactly as if you need to stay there for your line of work."

"Yeah, and it's not like everyone here would think I'm doing the work of evil, right."

What did he work with? So he didn't work with robots, he never had. He really had only been hanging around on that day, completely unrelated with the business. Even so, he could have at least looked at you, it wouldn't have killed him. You leaned further.

"Stop it, Dave. You know that isn't true. They have a lot of your work in the museum here, and they've even called you in to do more work. That actually means something, you know?"

Dave?

You leaned too far out of your chair. Falling to the floor could have been a salvageable move, maybe. That dumb stack Dirk had made crashing onto you after the fall? It wasn't as merciful. You made no move to get up. Game over. Now this guy would definitely notice you, what with the epic fall and mess. Mostly, your mind was still processing the name. Dave. That was a much better name than Dirk's. Better than Vriska's. One of the best names you knew. Dave, the guy who was too good to look at you, and too good to visit more often than every three months or so.

"What the hell? Sheesh, you're more disorganized than I am."

He was laughing, not the same sort of laugh as that very first day. It was unreserved, harmless, and you could already tell he hadn't clued in that someone was behind the crash. It was the sound of someone laughing amongst family, uncaring of any judgement that may come. It made you want to stay in that spot even more so.

"No. That's... John? Are you ok there, buddy?"

You were too ashamed to take Dirk's hand, and a little bit upset that he had to go and blow your cover that way. Couldn't he have just left you there? Pretend no one had caused such a huge crash. But then it went from Dirk kneeling down, to his brother leveling with him and crouching down, tilting his head in confusion. Great. He had finally looked at you. Face down, praying for the floor to metamorphose into quicksand. Your greatest shining moment, by far.

"Who is he? Is he stealing from you?"

"Don't be ridiculous. I'm wearing yellow, aren't I? I'm not going to steal from you like a no good Dersite."

Dirk looked much more appalled by the comment than Dave did, seemingly in shock that you would speak such words. Once again, you have to wonder what he sees when he looks at you. But Dave hasn't moved, as if still determining if you were a thief and a liar, or an actual innocent fellow.

"Stop looking at me like that!"

Ironic, probably. You try not to think of any discrepancies in the way you hold yourself and sit up, dusting off your shoulders with dramatic motions of your hands, as if you truly believed that it was a legitimate act of brushing off the situation.

"C'mon Dave, I wrote to you about him, you know who John is. You were even here when he came with that one arm girl, remember?"

Dirk had quirked his eyebrows, emphasizing certain words rather than others, and not for the first time you catch yourself imagining that maybe this guy, Dave, had seen something in you on that first day, the same way that you had with him.

He shrugs. "Well, don't you work for my brother? At least pick up after your mess."

You are absolutely, completely, affronted. At least, it was now confirmed that they were brothers. That aside... Pick up after your mess?! How dare he! You spend the rest of your working day ignoring their exchanged words, instead of attentively surveying them as you'd originally planned to do, furiously replacing the stack and then going around the store trying to bring some order to the stock in frustration. By sunset, nothing was looking much better than it had before your cleaning frenzy, and you don't bother to wish either one of the Striders a goodbye. They, in return, do not seem to even notice this departure.

You almost don't go back on the following day. Despite Dave's disregard for your extreme charm however, you don't manage to get him off your mind. Smiling into your pillow hardly seems like the appropriate response to how inadequate the pair of them had made you feel. There was something about the one who lived on Derse however, about Dave, that had you smiling. In the end, you were not able to stay away, not so rapidly.

Most surprisingly, Dave invites you to accompany him to his meeting.

"Yeah, everything looks the same around here, would be pretty cool if I could get a native guide."

You would have to say that Dirk had to be in cahoots with his brother, he only shrugged in response, as if he'd already known of your request to take the day off. You hoped that, maybe, Dave had begged to spend time with you, but you don't count on it this time.

You make a show out of being insulted by Dave's inability to get around town. The Museum of Nature is impressive and particular, like every other important monument and building around. You bite back any past thought of gold being gold, and of feeling confused by these streets yourself, and insist without stop that it was Dave's immense lack of culture that kept him from finding the museum by himself.

Eventually, however, you do think of extending the conversation into something that has less to do with hostilities. You ask him what he does in life, knowing, from yesterday, that it might turn out to be a touchy subject. It turns out to be pretty cool.

"Taxidermist. You don't know what that means? Yeah, it literally translates into; to arrange skin."

You cover your ears and shriek, faking the urge to throw up. Surprisingly, he doesn't act as if it's anything like a sore spot, instead laughing with you.

"Whatever. You've been to this museum before?" You nod. "Well you've seen the animal exhibits, right?" Another nod. "See, I prepare most of those animals."

You nod ferociously so now, making sure to let him know that you got it, you understood what he did.

"Oh no... So... You've come here to murder salamanders?" You think back to the small snippet you'd gotten yesterday, before you'd decided to tune the brothers out.

"No way! I don't murder. I usually collect carcasses. Sometimes, you don't even need one to make a model. But yeah, collect, not kill."

You nod, but you don't really get it. You pointedly wonder why he wouldn't just mooch off his brother and live off his business with him. He wasn't exactly demanding with skill sets when it came to employees, if you were any example. Sure seemed a lot more enjoyable than dealing with dead things.

"So salamanders, huh?"

"Anything, really." He shrugs in such a modest way that you decide and understand then that he was probably someone with an unimaginable talent in this given field. It should only strike you as weird, but it especially strikes you as impressive, for some unknown reason.

"Any career goals you haven't yet reached?"

He was a super accomplished person, you were sensing it already. You weren't quite expecting any answer to that question, it was just a way to confirm this quickly forming opinion.

"Hm? Oh, yeah. I'd really like to see a Denizen. So I could reproduce one. Like, life size, it would be insane."

All words leave you. You point down the street. "There. That's the Museum, I need to get back to work."

prospit,  
30th of september. 

come over soon. i'm fine, so stop sulking. look, this is probably the most intricate thing i've built so far, so obviously everything is fine. but it kind of sucks that i haven't seen you again this month.  
it's a pocket watch, but please tell me that that's obvious too. there is a secret compartment inside of it though, you should check it out!

You’d kicked your feet up onto the desk, picking at the light blue felt of your slipper looking shoes. You were pretty proud of said desk, though it did look out of place. You'd had enough of the cinder block decor and had taken home a few unused metallic panels. You were mildly aware that spraypainting them golden at home had been kind of blasphemous to the name of Strider robotics, maybe. It's not like any of the Prospitians who used them had them in a colour selection outside of dull greys and blacks. Your work station looked out of place in the tent, again to put it simply. And though you'd argued for hours that some assimilation would draw more customers in, you suppose that honestly the colour of your desk doesn't quite change robot necessity in people's day-to-day life.

Regardless, Dave was arriving today and though Dirk had completely gone out of his way to ignore your desk, and still had not said a word about it, not in three weeks. You were pumped for Dave to comment on it. Throughout your correspondence it had become pretty obvious that he had a hard time adjusting to Prospit's brightness when he came over, which was why he spent a lot of time with his head ducked into books or his tablet's projections. Which made perfect sense, thank you very much. He hadn't noticed you at first because you were so bright it was blinding. Though, he had actually let you know that you hadn't escaped his attention then. He'd thought you were the rudest Prospitian he'd heard of, but then again the friend who'd accompanied you hadn't been much nicer. It had given him a new image of the goody two-shoes Prospit.

You'd told him, after a particularly sentimental and heartfelt letter on the subject of finding a dead bird on his roof again and a very long paragraph of his philosophizing on the commemorative value of mounting animals; that he was the softest Dersite you'd heard of, and that he gave you a new image of the badass Derse.

You spread your arms wide when he finally arrives, not bothering to kick your feet off yet. You have to add in a dramatic 'Ta-da!' when he takes a while to react. Dirk doesn't even look up, and you have to tell yourself that this might be a Strider tendency, to stay out of things that could not directly concern them. Dave has brought an antique looking camera, one you could swear was made out of copper and must weigh a half of Dave's bodyweight to begin with. You find it clashes with his typical high-end technologies and his fancy looking salmon coloured shoes. You do your best to stay silent to allow him to comment on the phenomenal workplace you've created in the cramped shop, instead of asking about the aged piece of technology like you veritably want to do.

"Yeah, hi?" He seems confused, as if your cry of ta-da was to showcase yourself, not this amazing gold makeshift table of work.

"Notice something different?"

"You... You've really aged. Have you become a grandfather yet?"

"Oh, haha, Dave. Look at this." Instead of spreading your arms out you gesture towards the desk, as if it were a holy disciple descended from the outer skies of Derse and Prospit.

"You... Aren't working on anything?"

"No, no, damn it, that wasn't the point!" Of course he would take it as the empty surface, not the brightly, glistening, beautiful piece of art it was.

"Look, I don't get it, buddy." Dirk snickers, not pausing his rewiring to do so.

"Oh, I get it, it was you!" You stand up to point at Dirk, and promptly knock your head on a low-hanging light. He'd probably contacted his brother, asked him to act as if the golden hue did not exist at all in the tent, just as he had done previously.

At least, Dave doesn't directly laugh at your ungraceful, revolted stance, only looks faintly smug about having pulled off the indifferent card. You don't have the heart to tell him Dirk pulls it off a lot better than he does, but you still do.

You sit back down, put your chin down on your hand, make sure to convey a very large air of boredom, even though you were dying to hit the road with Dave and just go.

"Are you going to tell me why you brought that dinosaur or not?"

You point his camera out lazily. You want to tell him this thing is more ancient than Denizens are, but you don't dare speak the word out loud, especially not with Dirk in the room.

"Yeah, sure." Of course, he would forget to notice the insult in your words. He was like that, would zoom in on the fact that you were honestly asking a question about his work, and would forget any of the bite that came along with these questions. "See, look through here, it records dimensions of the images you take."

As he sat onto your desk, you resisted the urge to shriek at his utter disrespect for your unappreciated creation. But you still humour him and follow instructions, sort of impressed with what he was showing you.

"Really helps with accurate recreations."

You fail to resist calling him a nerd. But it was lost in his additional explanations, which only served to further prove your point. You also fail to pay attention to his descriptions, instead focused on cleaning up your work station before leaving. Cleaning up your work station could be resumed to dusting it off, all professional looking, for you had not even thought of starting up on any projects today, instead easily wasting two hours anticipating Dave's arrival.

You were starting to feel a little guilty, however. He was speaking of today's plans quite openly, whereas you would have never brought it up in presence of others. This sort of stuff was dangerous, you'd told him several times over the last few months. Obviously, you hadn’t quite insisted enough. Here he was, only with camera in hand, aloof and unexcited by what was yet to come, and making small talk out of it, as if no one could overhear and think of this plan as foolish.

Then again, you hadn't really done much insisting. You could have, past experience and all that, but you still hadn't brought that up. These sorts of things were dangerous, yes. But that thing with Vriska had been an accident; it had been the bad luck of the draw, nothing more. The only warnings you could give were that the unfolding of events could be unpredictable, that really was all there was to it. And who didn't know that anyway?

Throughout the day, moments to give an ampler warning presented themselves. The ferry ride back to Prospit's Moon had been half an hour of opportunities. Instead, you’d spent it answering Dave's queries. How had you come to know of this procedure? Oh well, you had this friend whose great-great-great-great-grandmother, or some old lady related to your friend anyway, had left her with a journal filled with testimonials and procedures. That might have been the perfect time to mention that said friend had lost an arm and an eye over trying to follow these detailed instructions. But, you just don't.

Instead of simply pointing your tower out on your way up the road, you could have invited him inside, invited him to have a good long talk about why, despite his job and aspirations, escalating Mount Edna might not be the way to go about things. You, instead, spend hours on end escalating Mount Edna, and do not provide further reasoning to drop out of this endeavour.

You do not choose to withhold, instead you become the veritable instigator.

"So, how does this work?"

You'd retrieved the vial from the inside of your sleeve, spinning it in between your fingers and not properly formulating the thoughts of putting an end to this expedition.

"Oh, I've got this friend, a different friend, she's really into the whole witchcraft thing. She prepared it for me. It's like, it expands over time to fill the space it's contained in, see, the vial's full now, but it was only about halfway there earlier. Anyway, it should expand enough to disturb and awake Hephaestus."

The shift in his expression is too much to handle, too much to remind you that you should carefully back out of this situation. Instead, you glance back down the road, towards the wharf of arriving celestial ships.

"How are we on time? We'll have to be pretty quick. We're going to have to swim up the celestial river connecting Prospit and Derse, they won't let us leave public transport halfway through."

He follows your line of sight, nodding solemnly. You could tell he was going through quick calculations, you didn't bother checking for yourself, only waiting on his answer.

"Yeah, if we run down the trails, we should just make the ship to the grand place, then if we take a good propelling start, we should pull it off, it'll be fine."

That had been perfect opportunity number sixteen to come clean about your uncertainty. Instead, you tipped the vial.

You thought, for a moment, while running through the streets of your home Moon, that you might just drop by Jade's tower, admit that the liquid had definitely not been for a prank. In fact, you were possibly jeopardizing all inhabitants currently at home in their towers. So the notebook had described that Hephaestus, when waking, would simply rise and orbit once around Prospit, sure. But all the books you'd read up on in the planetary library had described something akin to a destructive eruption.

You do no such thing, and instead pretend you are as easygoing as Dave about the whole thing, listening to a variety of his tales as you sit through the painfully stressful journey back to the mainland.

Absolutely no one gives the pair of you any off looks as you push into the celestial water connecting the two planets, perhaps it seemed natural for a duo compromised of one Dersite and of one Prospitian to be diving into the canal. Your gut twisted with every kick you gave away from the hoards of casual swimmers, going further and further away where only the ships voyaged.

It seemed Dave's sense of timing was impeccable. As soon as you paused, letting yourself drift to a stop, the noise began. A steady low whirring sort of sound, reminiscent of oversized gears grinding against one another. Even in spacial waters, the sound could be perceived.

You glanced at Dave before glancing at Mount Edna, fascinated with the way he'd already brandished his camera. You felt less fascinated with the steady silhouette of fire emerging from Mount Edna. Once completely extracted from its home, it looked to be double the size of Prospit's Moon, and you could not begin to comprehend it. The silhouette within the halo of fire was indiscernible, and you had to wonder if, when the Denizen slept its days away, the flames were nowhere to be seen. Perhaps it was only a low light, enough to keep the streets warm and peaceful.

The sight before you was anything but peaceful.

"Shit."

With Vriska, you'd never really even gotten to the part where you could meet Typheus, but you were finding it hard to think that it could have been as impressive as the scene before you now.

The constant clicking of Dave's camera could have suggested that you'd thought of the best spot for the show, but you were suddenly made aware of the stupidity of that plan. Maybe picking to be out here had been a desperate way of making sure you hadn't caused the ultimate demise of your planet, of observing what the emergence looked like. All Dave needed though, was to see the Denizen. Which you could have done, no problem, from the mainland, where, surely, you would not have been in danger.

"Dave. Dave, swim back."

"What, why?"

You were seized quite suddenly with affection for him. You thought of the glass framed golden beetles you kept securely in your wallet, next to your Prospitian identification. Thought of the stuffed rabbit you kept at the foot of your bed, though you always kicked it off without fail during the night, you securely seated him day after day, wishing him good morning as if it were an intermediate to, you now realized, someone who'd quickly become your best friend.

Dave was pretty precious, and you'd put him in... Not so much of a great situation here, though he didn't seem to realize it yet.

"Look, we're going to get burnt to smithereens, just swim back."

"But, the details —"

"The details you'll see from down there. Dave, come on, move."

You shoved him back towards the golden wharf. It was a good start, but it didn't help your own predicament, your propulsion was still set towards Derse, and though you'd pushed Dave into the correct direction, it only served to push your own direction away. You kicked as best as you could, but the muscle strength wasn't entirely there, not entirely enough to reassure you that no harm would come out of this entire setup.

The ferocious roaring emanating from the awoken Denizen was too loud to allow you to catch any of the words you could see on Dave's lips, his head turned back towards you, despite your insistence to hurry away.

You tell him again, cupping your hands around your mouth. You think of his confession of finding Prospit's decor hard to handle with its brightness, and then take in the current state of the sky, it was almost aflame, and the more time progressed, the more this phenomenon seemed to gain in amplitude. Hephaestus' orbiting was not going to spare you, it was taking the direction that would take the shortest amount of time to get to you, not the long way around. In that moment, you forget what the notebook had said, if you should have maybe taken more of an interest in its supposed orbit, but it seemed pretty fair to assume that the Denizen was setting you as the target for disturbing him.

Dave wasn't much further ahead. You knew, logically, that there wasn't a bullseye on your person, nothing indicating you as the one to be punished, but still, distantly, you hoped that your role as instigator might spare Dave altogether. It was fair retribution, wasn't it? Vriska had been hurt pretty badly, and in her case it was only on your quest to find the lair, she had not actually been the victim of the Denizen. Maybe the combination of both putting Vriska and Dave in danger was what earned you the spot in the tragic trajectory you found yourself in.

The noise and light progressively get to the point where your hearing and sight are of no use, and your efforts to swim forward might be sending you in the wrong direction for all you knew of your surroundings. Most alarming of all is losing sight of Dave. The most predominant thought occupying your mind is that he doesn't deserve to die. It's a foreign concept to you, seeing as in the past you'd observed death as an inevitability; there was no such thing as being deserving or undeserving of death. And tales of heroic and just deaths sounded incredibly juvenile. It was part of the experience, you were pretty sure. It's strange of you to integrally understand that it should not be a card in Dave's deck.

Simpler thoughts allude to fleeting fears that your hearing and sight might not come back at all, and that a world of white, in which you strain your muscles without knowing if they were serving to your demise or to your rescue, might be the only world that would accompany you into a just death.

Later, you would think of how unlucky you might have been had you been situated anywhere nearer to the core of the Denizen. The tail end of its halo of flames had been enough to keep any thoughts of survival as unobtainable mirages, anywhere closer and you would have been incinerated toast instead of burnt toast. You'd brought your right arm up to shield your face from reaching an overheated state, your other limbs you'd dedicated to the dying attempt to save your skin.

It takes very torturous moments to start understanding that the heat and whiteness was receding rather than gaining force. This is not good news, not when it brings the red coloured pain surging through your arm. You almost forget to look for Dave, but he'd stopped anyway. Reaching him took another few painful moments, and you'd never despised the way his eyes were covered more than when you were trying to figure out if they had become ones of a corpse or of someone still well and alive. 'Well' might have been an overstatement, but you wrapped your only arm that didn't call for intense pain around his as soon as it was reachable.

That seemed to snap him out of his immobility. Maybe, he too, had been ready to welcome death. You hoped he wasn't in half the pain you found yourself in.

His words are impossible to discern still, and you start thinking, once again, that maybe your hearing is good and gone. His lips are moving fast however, you can still see, and his face, a pale wreck.

It's only once he wraps a hand around your wrist that you understand the topic at hand. You're not sure just how loud you scream in response to the way he rolls your sleeve up, but his wince is noticeable. You lose all urge to scream once you've taken a look at your arm. The only other time you'd seen this much blood had been with Vriska, but then, her flesh hadn't been burnt off. You blank the rest of things out, unable to assess the state of the rest of your skin.

You don't really remember the rest of the night. You know that Dave swam back whilst carrying your weight as an extra load. You think one of the ships might have picked you up before reaching Prospit, you don't really remember, and you don't ever make the efforts to.

derse  
5th of december 

what happened to not getting me a birthday present i demand a refund   
but anyway yeah this was the best one we found last month remember  
i havent seen you since youre not avoiding me are you  
your 'stayed home sick' excuse last time i visited was pretty transparent just saying

"Aren't you going to invite me to come along?"

You've never seen Dave look so startled. You think of making a joke. You'd lost an arm, not the ability to speak; but you contain yourself. You don't think that would blow over so well. Dave always looks at you as if he's about to faint nowadays. It would be funny, but you also look at him differently now. There weren't enough words to explain that however, or maybe too many words at the same time. But it was getting ridiculous. He didn't seem to ever want to stick around to spend time with you anymore. On paper, it was a different story, your correspondence was much the same as it had once been before, but...

You thought it was stupid. Vriska had lost an arm by her own fault, and sure, you'd felt a little guilty that you'd been around when it had happened, but just a little! She'd even lost an eye too, and it was still only a little guilt, you hadn't made that big a deal out of it. You'd even come here in the first place to help her get it replaced. Dave however... He hadn't joked around casually as you'd been able to do alongside Vriska when you were getting Dirk to replace your limb, he'd only gripped your left hand and had stayed quiet, quite similarly to how he'd responded now to your self-invitation.

"Well?" You had to insist, this had gone long enough, you'd had the stupid metal appendage for the whole of two months already. It was time to move on. You had moved on! Dave was being stupid.

He looked really stupid too, with that oversized Derse purple parka, and those oversized Prospit gold mittens his brother had bought him from a local shop.

"I won't even need two of those ugly mittens, only one, come on, I'll be no trouble." You bring your right hand up and wiggle your fingers in demonstration. You're pretty sure he's fighting not to pass out.

Dirk says nothing, he's got his arms crossed tightly over his chest. You know he's also regretting the purchase of the ugly golden moon emblazoned mittens. He's had many arguments with Dave this past month, he's told you so. The general consensus was that Dave was being a baby, and that you were fine and, even, your performance at work had gone up.

"Dirk! Tell your brother he has to take me with him!" So, of course, not knowing what else to do, you join the 'big baby' camp.

"I don't have to do anything!" And that must have been the lengthiest, sincerest thing he'd spoken to you since that day back in September.

"Correct. And John doesn't have to stay here if he doesn't want to. LOFAF is public domain, accessible to all citizens."

"Not if I buy out all the ferry tickets!" He points a finger towards you, and you can't help it, you smile at the return of his attention. It had been pretty lame having Dave looking away from you constantly.

He storms out of the store, and you slide over your gold desk, version 3.2, intently following after him, though not before shooting Dirk two thumbs up in thanks. He was pretty great at being the voice of reason, you would admit to that.

"Hey, wait up! If you buy out all the tickets, I'll just take the next trip there, they leave hourly, you know!"

He hesitates, you'd overheard him with his brother, his expedition could take a quarter of an hour, or all day, there was no telling yet. An hour had low chances of being enough to satisfy his quest.

"I said I'd buy out the ferry, didn't I? I'll buy out tickets for the whole day!"

"They won't let you!"

If everyone on the streets had been throwing looks at the winter dressed Dersite, now they were definitely throwing looks at the bickering duo. It hadn't been your intention to start an argument, but it was definitely fun, a lot more fun than it had been pretending you didn't notice Dave's insurmountable amounts of guilt. It was less fun to jog to keep up with Dave's long, even strides, though it was equally hilarious to watch him walk in that massive jacket.

"I'll help you! Come on, I know you. You're going to cry every time you collect a dead frog. I'll do it for you, stop being a gigantic baby."

"It's part of my job, John. You're not allowed to come!"

"And why not?"

"I don't know! What if like, you fall through ice and drown? It's too dangerous."

"Oh come on, that is bullshit and you know it!"

He looks over his shoulder and you almost give up. He looks furious, to say the least. When he speaks next, it's with a finality that has nothing to do with the rest of your childish sounding argument. "I'm not getting you involved in anything risky, so stop asking me to."

"Dave." You take four quicker strides and finally reach his shoulder with your good hand. Your left used to be your less dominant hand, but you didn't think the switch was such a bad thing. Dave used his left hand too, and that meant you'd be able to eat meals one next to the other without knocking elbows. But no opportunities had shown up yet, Dave had stayed away as much as possible.

Thankfully, he does stop and listen, though all the while looking quite regretful. "Look, I was the one who didn't tell you about the risk at Mount Edna. I should have, but I didn't. So if you're staying away to punish me, fine, so be it. But if you're staying away from me to punish yourself, then cut it out."

You avoid bringing up that you could see the way his eyes were tearing up, despite the shades, and instead roll your eyes and punch him softly in the shoulder.

It's less easy to keep yourself from bringing it up when his voice cracks in his next sentence. "I just haven't stopped thinking about it. It's really hard, you know?"

"Yeah, I know." You didn't, actually. You'd felt little to no sympathy when it had been Vriska in your shoes, even worse shoes, to be perfectly honest. Dave was too sensitive, you'd always thought so, with his girly looking hands, you'd always known. He was way too soft. But somehow, you felt for him and for his pain. He hadn't lost an arm and an eye, maybe not. But he was hurting in the sort of way you could actually respond to.

You don't admit to yourself that it doesn't have anything to do with the 'type of hurt' and had instead everything to do with the person at hand.

He nods, tipping his head forward, and you graciously ignore the tears that slide down his cheeks.

It's only halfway through the ride to LOFAF that Dave seems to remember your lack of winter garments. He goes off on tangents of frostbite and of losing your last remaining fingers to the cold. You manage to make him hold your hand with his mitten covered ones, despite the heating of the ferry. You try not to feel too smug about it, but it's pretty hard not to.

Turns out that Dave's definition of a boring day of work is in fact quite boring. Frogs aren't easy to catch. You feel the insistent need of letting Dave know over and over again. It takes you at least twenty times to understand what Dave means when he tells you your complaining isn't pertinent. It's the first time you catch a frog, one hour into your hike, the slimy long legged creature wriggling in your hands, when you finally get what he was trying to tell you.

This frog, is completely useless, you tell yourself, staring into its double-lidded eyes. You were collecting deceased frogs. You'd wasted an hour trying to catch hopping frogs that were, very, very evidently, alive. Dave, on the other hand, had encased at least half a dozen, in fancy transparent cases he almost materialized out of his messenger bag. It's hard work, you realize a little too late. Derse seems to venerate the Genesis Frog much more seriously than your own people does. You're half sure you can hear Dave whisper a prayer every time he collects a deceased frog. You'd find it heartbreaking if you didn't find it so weird.

You'd been right about Dave being too emotional as well, the more the day dragged on, the more sullen his mood became. You hadn't yet found an unmoving frog out of the hundreds hopping at your very feet. You imagine briefly that... Maybe, were you to step on one, you could offer up a specimen, finally. But you're not sure it would be worth it, or even presentable enough for Dave to be able to make use of it. You start ignoring the colourful 'sacred' beings and concentrate on Dave with his stupid big mittens and with his stupid concentrated expression.

"So," You start off slow, the ghost of your breath a late reminder of your lack of padding. It's not really that cold though, and you think Dave is sort of ridiculous to come out here all wrapped up like that. "Have you given thought to your Denizen project?"

"Are you kidding? You were there, that thing was just about the size of ten of your museums, I can't say it's a realistic project."

It definitely had not seemed to lighten his mood.

"Just make it to scale, what's the big deal?"

You think you hear him gasp, but you prefer to believe he isn't quite as dramatic as that would entail, you're probably wrong. "To scale? That is an outright disrespect to my craft. That's not what it's about at all!" He's saying it in the middle of holding up a limp, gold Prospitian looking frog, and you think that makes it all the more dramatic.

"What? Alright, fine, turn your craft into an actual art. Take a bit of artistic licence, get an exhibit in our Museum of Fine Arts, it's cool, dude."

"You're crazy," He says with a sniff. You notice his nose has gotten red. He really must be quite cold. You wait until he's stored the poor frog away with the others to pursue the conversation, just in case he starts crying on the frog and magically bring it back to life, or something freaky like that.

"It's not crazy! Just imagine it, Dave, Denizen hunter extraordinaire, Derse born, Prospit based artist, visionary. That would be such a good life to you!"

The silence that follows is so resounding that it makes this very moment the very first time today that you pick up on the dull and constant croaking surrounding you.

"Really?" You're under the impression that his eyes might be shining behind those shades with the way he pronounces the word, so shakily.

"Uh, yeah?"

This was such an odd moment for Dave to get all gooey and emotional. You had to blink a couple of times, to truly take in the sight. Fields of snow and frogs, those big round shades giving even Dave a _froggish_ look, that huge purple bell-shaped jacket, and those too big mittens. There would be no element of surprise were you to wake up in the next few moments; it was likely to be the most logical explanation to the oddity of this situation.

"You want me to move to Prospit?"

Had you said that? Well, not explicitly anyway, but, yeah, you guess that was in there somewhere. What was up with his reaction? You'd thought it was touched, but then maybe he was just upset? Maybe he was in hysterics; _Oh John, how dare you ask me to leave my homeland behind?_ You couldn't say that was the best outcome, you'd sure be a lot happier were he to stay on the same planet, at the very least the same planet, that wasn't asking for a lot, but you hadn't even asked him yet and it looked as if his entire world was collapsing on itself.

"Well, why not? Your brother lives on Prospit. Most of your works get exposed there, and there's more wildlife to document too. Not to mention, I know where all the Prospitian Denizens are hidden..." You lock your jaw, fist your hands. You were making yourself sound as if you'd rehearsed a list of reasons to get him to abandon his planet. You hadn't, had you?

"You want me to move to Prospit?"

Geez, was Dave processing a mental bug right now?

"Yeah, Dave. I just said that." Your tone of voice was starting to tip towards something a little more impatient, but it hardly changed the look on Dave's face.

"We'd spend more time together? Like, you'd want to spend more time together?"

"Are you serious? I wouldn't be constantly making you gifts and writing you letters if I didn't want to spend time with you, sheesh."

Your impatience more or less dies off as Dave goes quiet. The tip of his nose wasn't the only part of his face that had gone red now. You think to yourself that the way he'd covered his cheek with that bright yellow mitten made him seem incredibly childish. And yet, you'd rarely felt as compelled to approach him as you did now.

You make sure not to step onto any frogs as you walk up to him; you think that might easily destroy the moment. You tell him, "God, Dave. You really should stop acting so stupid." It does little to conceal that you'd invaded his personal space, if anything, it was a loud indicator to how much closer your lips were.

He doesn't reply, but you don't really give him the chance to do so. His yellow mittens aren't resting on his cheeks now, but rather on yours, and it does indeed make you feel a lot younger, a lot happier. His lips are predictably cold, but every time your noses rub, you find his to be warm, it makes you smile, and you feel him huff against your lips in reply, as if taking your smile as a personal offence. You're finally happy for those dumb mittens his brother had gotten him, if only because he seemed to encase the interlocking of your lips in its own personal world, putting up woolen yellow barriers at the edges of your vision to keep the absurd scenery at bay.

You think that maybe this absurd scenery might have been sufficient motivation to even convince you to initiate this. The otherworldliness helping you to close up a distance in your relationship you had not yet sensed. You find that you have to pat his sides a lot just to find his waist, what with the ridiculously warm getup he'd needed for the hike. But the laughter you feel in between your kisses is enough compensation to make the awkward prodding worth it. It is the sort of laughter that reminds you of when you'd first seen him, laughing by himself under strange circumstances. And now, you were part of this personal sense of laughter that he had, under different, but just as strange circumstances.

Kissing him, altogether, had been unplanned. Kissing him, also, seems to completely trash his work efficiency. You spend the rest of the afternoon, not knowing how to react to his sudden disorientation and loss of words. You kiss him whenever he stops moving completely. It doesn't seem to remind him how to do his job, but it does put a smile on his face, and coaxes a shy, giddy sounding sort of laugh out of his slightly redder lips.

Neither one of you really mentions it, and the more time passes, the less you know how to mention it.

prospit,  
14th of february.

i know what you're thinking, and i wish i could say this were a romantic letter. but, ha ha, nope. all i can say is that i have something important to show you, alright? i've been trying to work up the courage, but if i send a written invitation i won't even need to work up any courage, so that's even better.   
so just meet me at the time and location attached to this letter. if you don't, i'll hunt you down and... well, you get the picture.  
love you.

"You look a little disgruntled, Dave."

"Yeah. You made me come meet you secretly in your bedroom. Wouldn't you say that's sort of unnerving?"

You laugh. You hadn't even thought of that.

"What? It's just a meeting place, we're not staying here."

"What the hell, are you serious? I had to worry about it for an entire week, why the hell did you ask to meet here?"

"I don't know, I live here? It's convenient?"

He breathes out, long and steady, his hands curling in his hair. Hair which, you now realize, had looked neater than ever. Oh man, he'd really thought so, hadn't he? You'd sent him a message on Saint Valentine's, told him you wanted to do something important that you hadn't found the courage to bring up until then, and had set the location to your tower, late at night. And so he'd shown up at your tower, late at night, nails obviously recently trimmed, hair groomed into place way too many times, clothes probably freshly ironed, skin just a flush redder than usual.

You instantly feel bad. You're still getting used to this; having someone that makes you feel this empathetic. It would irritate you, but it doesn't quite manage to do that. There's something too satisfying in telling yourself that you were able to tune into Dave's emotions, that you were irrevocably on the same wavelength.

"Were you really worried about that?"

His nod is pathetic looking, and had it been anyone else, you would have had a good laugh about it. But instead you beckon him closer to you. Again, you feel bad about the pitiable walk over that he makes, and you try to convince yourself to laugh at him, but it just won't come.

It takes about half a millisecond to run your hand in his hair and to destroy any evidence of the time he's consecrated to styling it. He almost deflates under that small attention. You feel bad. You feel worse than bad. Sure, you'd found ways to kiss quite a lot in the last months, but still, that particular topic had not yet been addressed. You sort of felt like an asshole for inviting him to your bedroom when you'd never even talked about any of this, even though your intentions were nothing of the sort.

"Sorry." Even though it was mostly mumbled, it did not go unheard. You laughed at the way he looked at you, as if shocked by the word.

"Sorry? I mean... No! It wasn't like, I wasn't coming onto you, or trying to trick you into anything!" From this close, you could see his eyes go wide in earnest. It reminds you of the rare times you've had him all to yourself, the ones when he's taken off his shades. It always managed to amaze you, to think that, just staring into his eyes, was a bit of a privilege.

You grab him by the wrists, he doesn't jump in surprise anymore when the cold of your right hand makes contact with his skin, and you're happy about that. You step back, taking a seat at the edge of your bed, and tug him forward, he listens instinctively, leaning down to kiss you. You think you might be doing a pretty terrible job at convincing him that you meant nothing of the sort for tonight.

"I was serious, you know? It's just a meeting spot, we're going somewhere else." You catch him rolling his eyes, so you kiss him to make them shut. Before you know it, you've pulled him onto your bed too, you try not to think that this is his first time visiting your tower at all.

"No, Dave, I'm serious, my backpack is right over there, packed and ready to go, I promise!" He's not listening, and you try not to giggle as he kisses your neck.

It takes considerably longer than expected to get going. You don't really care. A midnight expedition sounds pretty cool, for starters. And secondly, you'd managed to wipe the smug look of control off Dave's face. You liked it a lot better the way it was now, slightly redder, bashful, constantly glancing in your direction. He's probably not too happy that you're the smug looking one now, but, tough luck.

Walking in the dark was nice too, mostly because the golden tiles of the street seemed to emanate their own glow, even in this sort of lack of lighting. And also because Dave had started walking so much closer to you, and had grabbed your hand, even though he was on your right side. You felt quite close to him, it was incredibly nice.

It was as equally nice to know that Dave trusted you, did not question that you were going up the hill, towards Mount Edna. And when it came to moving the boulders you pointed out near the base of the volcano, he did not hesitate to help you out.

He seemed perplexed by what was revealed behind the arrangement of boulders. It was barely large enough for a grown person to slip in, but you managed it as well as the first time that you had, Dave seemed to have even less difficulty.

The Moon's inner core was of an unsettling complexity, solid gold chains going every which way in a strange effort to keep the whole structure together. The chains were so large, it was easy to use them as pathways, but the risk of falling was present nonetheless. That was the main reason you held Dave's hand as you descended further down.

You had not forgotten the order of sequence to find Prospit Moon's inner cavern. But the further down you went, the more the golden glow of the chains faded away, replaced by a soft blue instead.

You didn't need help removing the boulders at the second impasse. They still remained on the floor of Typheus' Cavern, where they'd fallen when Vriska had led you here just about a year ago now. You sigh as you sit near the opening, legs dangling over the edge. Deep down, you'd always felt somewhat guilty for what had happened. Vriska had guided you with such expertise though, you'd never doubted her savoir faire. She'd known of every location, of every path you could have taken. The foundations had been old, not at all solid, however, and when she'd descended the natural ladder shaped onto the wall of the cavern, the rocks had followed with her, trapping her arm and disfiguring her.

Even such a ruckus, even her cries of agony, had not waken the Denizen, which you'd never truly looked at. You'd been too concerned, too affected by your friend's fall.

You smile at Dave, signalling for him to sit with you.

"Hey, so..." Your smile softened when he sat directly next to you, putting his chin down onto your shoulder to look at what you were taking out of your bag.

"I didn't want to send it to you, just in case customs confiscated it. I got you the newest model of the camera you use, you know, 'cause yours is as old as time, and Typheus down there deserves some respect."

You present the slim, golden camera, and despite its definite Prospit vibe, you can tell he loves it right away, just from the way he held it preciously, sensibly gratefully. You feel like, on some level, it might be an appropriate gift welcoming him to the planet. A brand new camera he can use for work, themed with his new home planet. You don't tell him, but you like to think that he'd thought of it as well.

You take the ladder down first, keeping your eye on Dave the whole time. Once your feet hit the floor, you laugh in relief. You don't go looking for the stains of blood Vriska had left behind, instead, you grab both of Dave's hands and decide that the thought of this place was no longer as frightening and as nightmare inducing as it had once been a year ago.

Typheus sleeps, far from you, at the opposite end of the cavern. There really is no other way for you to describe him other than an impressive, mythological, gigantic worm taking your moon as his very own bad apple. The tail is even more so impressive, miles and miles of length. Dave is immediately snapping away. You're a lot more interested with the low level of water as you step further into the home. The noise of the water was calming, and its reflection of sparkling minerals overhead gave the cavern a vibe of celestiality you would have never picked up on the last time you'd been here.

You ask Dave what he thinks, and he excitedly gestures to how big it is, obviously not daring to raise his voice. You think he knows it won't awaken, you think it might have something more to do with respect, rather than anything else.

He's knee-deep in water when you reach him, and the reflection of the star like minerals and stones makes his face glow in an irresistible manner. You start describing your geographical location, pointing towards the ceiling, letting him know that Mount Edna was right above, housing the sleeping Denizen you'd first seen together.

"What do you think? Wouldn't it be cool if we could hunt all of them down and document them? I think everyone would agree that, at the end of the day, you'd have the coolest art expo ever."

"Yeah." He'd removed his shades, propped them atop of his head so that he could work with more affinity. He looked really good, probably the best you'd seen him yet. "But you'll come with me?" His voice is small enough that you know this is one of his weird moments where the words you're exchanging mean a lot more than you would have judged them to had you been dealing with someone else. You're used to it now however, and you smile warmly, honestly.

"You better bring me with you, Dave! Wow, can't believe you were thinking of going without me." He laughs, his blush as obvious as it had been back in your room earlier. "Don't tell me you were thinking of going with someone else!"

"Shut up, no way. I want it to be with you."

You laugh at the double entendre in his words. He doesn't let you kiss him after laughing at him, but he does accept to sleep over in your tower that night instead of returning to his hotel room.

 

_Prospit's Museum of Fine Arts_  
requests the pleasure of your company  
at the opening exhibition of  
Sir Dave Strider  
showcasing the first two of eight commissioned pieces  
on Thursday, December eleventh  
from 9:00 to 10:30 p.m.  
R.S.V.P. by November 3

"We are so late."

It's not like Dave to be late. You know he's doing it on purpose. Wanted to visit the piers at night, yeah right. Wanted to order dessert at the restaurant, and then order a second one after he was finished, yeah right. He so didn't want to go to this thing.

You thought his whining about the pleasantries of an opening night had been just a phase, and just so, he'd dropped the incessant complaining after the fourth or fifth time you'd asked him to. Well, demanded him to. He'd been pretending. He hadn't veritably warmed to the idea. He'd planned this out, quite smartly so. Kept using the 'it's my special day' card and getting you to bring him wherever he wanted to go, smartly dragging out each one of these special requests.

"But, do we really have to go?"

He'd insisted on dropping back home before heading back to the gallery showing, claiming he'd forgotten something of the utmost importance. Obviously that had been but a ploy. And he was still busy occupying your bed in the laziest, most spread out position he could have possibly conjured.

"Yes. We actually really have to go." You glanced out of your window, trying to tell the time simply by spotting which side of Derse you could currently see. That was Dave's thing however, you didn't really know how those shenanigans worked. "It's going to be over any minute now, we have to!"

"In twelve minutes, actually."

"Dave!"

He groaned, muffling the sound into your pillow. And you mean yours, the one on your side of the bed, not his. You try to push him off, unsuccessfully. "Stop slobbering on my pillow, you loser. Get up, let's go!"

His groaning devolved into sad whining. You knew the words he was going to use before he did: "But, you said tonight's my special night."

So you give up trying to get him out of the tower, take your shoes off, and take a seat in bed, which was actually what you'd wanted to do for a while now. You let him put his head onto your lap and wrap his arms around your waist. You even give him one of those dumb head massages he's always begging you for.

"You aren't happy with your pieces?" You ask him cautiously, just in case there was something wrong. You weren't always as in tune with Dave's sensitive nature, but you were getting better at making sure and at checking.

"No, they're really rad."

"You're proud?"

"Well, yeah. But you've already seen them a thousand times visiting me at the studio. I'm proud to show them to you. Bro, too, maybe. But the guy's unreadable, I don't want to watch him watching my stuff."

You try not to feel too proud of yourself that you'd climbed up the ranks of importance in his life so rapidly. You don't try hard enough, and end up smiling like an idiot.

"You're happy?"

He turns onto his back, gazing into your eyes openly. Him taking his shades off once arrived home should have been the last hint to him not leaving again for the night. You laugh a little as he intertwines his fingers with yours, clearly used to the metallic surface.

"I'm so happy." He doesn't smile, but there is no place for question in those simple words.

"Because of me?" You ask him, perhaps a tad self-indulgent.

He stays quiet for a while, but you can tell he's not searching for words, rather, searching your face. Trying to see if what he had to say, could be said at this very moment. "Yeah. Things were fine without you. But... Everything just makes sense now."

He squeezes your hand softly. Sometimes, that type of motion is hard to register for your right hand, but not this time. You think maybe you will go visit Dave's pieces tomorrow, take a day off from the shop and accompany him. You know he'd actually like that, without the floods of strangers and the silly hors d'oeuvres.

You spend most of the night up with him, smiling and confessing really silly things to one another. You don't confess that you'd already mapped out the next Denizen you could hunt down. You think, maybe, you will surprise him at the museum tomorrow.


End file.
